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read between the lines
julian frenzy imagine feeling so ecstatic being around someone, that he's the first thing you think of when you wake up and the last one you see before you go to sleep. he's so addictive that you cut short your lunch every day just to see him, and because he's constantly on your brain, you find yourself smiling or smothering smiles throughout random moments of your day. in fact, the mere memory of him perks up your mood so much that despite whatever trials you face daily, you breeze through them unfazed and feel like you can take on the world as long as you have him in your life. now imagine that this guy only exists in your imagination, as dictated by the pages of the novel you're holding.i know, it's so unbelievably hard to believe, much less even expect that a fictional character like julian(the link is the closest online rendition i could find of him online; if he existed in real life he might resemble this in the flesh) from l.j. smith's the game trilogy of books can have such an effect on me, and it has, this month (ending spoilers below, be forwarned). at this point i should clarify that i read l.j.'s books waaay before the vampire diaries got mangled into a pothole-ridden tv show plot (sorry, but casting a delicious guy as damon -- pun intended -- is not going to save the show any more than casting ryan gosling as the eponymous protagist in hercules did). it was an unassuming monday at work like any other and i was killing time at the nearby bookstore when the game caught my eye. now the last time i read the game was when i was fresh out of tweenhood and just settling into my teens, back when friends like my schoolmates exchanged books to read. i remember being surprised when a classmate of mine who was so used to carrying intellectual adult fiction tomes around passed this to me to try, but after reading it, i doubted her taste in this book no longer. now, to expect someone who's just hit puberty to fall for teenage literature like this is acceptable, but for a working young adult to do so is...a tall order. so back to my lunch hour at the bookstore: i decided that re-reading a teenagehood favourite was a safe bet and requested for the book to be unwrapped. [i really hate that the custom of wrapping books in plastic for the sake of 'preserving their condition' (read: so they don't have to dust off their books from the shelves) has spread from jb to sg...even the mega bookstore page one has taken up this trend, which now leaves borders as the only last safe haven for unwrapped book lovers in this area. a friend of mine argued that you can always request for a book to be unwrapped and still not buy it, but what if you wanna browse through seven different books, or maybe an entire section of books?] the next thing i knew, i found myself having difficulty putting the book down and vowed to come back the next day. and the next, and the next, until i eventually bought the book on friday after work because i just had to have my 'julian fix' over the weekend as well. i devoured the trilogy by the end of the weekend and stayed up crazy hours just to read up on this guy, as if seeing page-fulls of text was the same as seeing him (well it was; i saw him in the corner of my mind). after the whole episode of feeling 'high' ended (it ended when the novel ended, 'cos *SPOILER* he dies), i found myself undergoing withdrawal symptoms. like how am i going to cope in a world without julian...like, how on earth did i cope without him for so many years (in any case, i don't recall feeling this euphoric the first time i read about him)? more importantly, why did julian have such an effect on me this time round? it was in writing a fan response to l.j. smith that i discovered why (as summarised in the points below -- and i wrote partly with follow-up story arc suggestions since she said she was coming up with a sequel) *SPOILERS below*: 1) julian has always allowed jenny free will even though he might have manipulated or lied about the circumstances (despite initially claiming to be evil, he turned out to be the good guy after all when push came to shove) 2) julian treats her with respect, and never once did this character assault, molest or hurt jenny (the bees don't really count because they weren't real and she wasn't harmed by them) 3) his sheer innocence -- he retains that purity and simplicity of childhood, even in romantic interactions with jenny 4) he only exists in the figment of our (readers') imaginations -- hence he can be as perfect as i want him to be, and i don't need to make any commitments at all, like how i'd have to in a real-life relationship |
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